


Batty-Fang

by baku_midnight



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Blood, Discussion Of Murder, Dwight gets abused a lot, Forced Pregnancy, Gothic Au, Impregnation, Kidnapping, M/M, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Rape, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Size Difference, Unprotected Sex, Violence, Witch Curses, possible actual murder, tiny reference to abo dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 13:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21100214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baku_midnight/pseuds/baku_midnight
Summary: MacMillan was behind him, curling a possessive arm about his waist while they dozed, spent. The night sky, tinged just with the blue of frightfully early morning—two or three bells, perhaps—glowed silently outside the quaintly framed windows of their bedroom. It was the one with the four-poster, one of a trio of bedrooms, by Dwight’s count, that they most often shared. It was where they first consummated their twisted marriage, and was permanently stained with their shared fluids, despite numerous replacements of the fine sheets.---An extremely dark Gothic AU, with a concept something along the lines of Beauty and the Beast, with mpreg leanings--only Beauty doesn't fall in love with the Beast, just gets dicked by him.





	Batty-Fang

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the tags.

The true circumstances that brought about death of Viscount Archibald MacMillan, and left his son Evan sole inheritor and director of MacMillan Ironworks and Manufacturing, were still unknown. It was known that one-hundred and twelve young men perished in the iron mines beneath Crow’s Peak in an accident coincident, but not necessarily consequent to the elder MacMillan’s suicide. The younger MacMillan was publically devastated, and vowed to return his father’s ruined business to impossibly lofty standards—yet shortly following the accident, he disappeared entirely from public view and the business languished.

Evan MacMillan, well-known for his seething, dark constitution, sequestered himself in his father’s mansion out of grief or resentment, eschewing all contact from outsiders, including authorities, who knew well to stay in avoidance. Although evidently neutered in prowess following the death of his workforce, the man was like a chained dog, restrained and frothing. Who knew what sort of traps and schemes he’d had time to construct alone in his empty manor, with only his isolation and anger for company?

Unknown to the public, however, there was another reason for the villain’s retreat: a supernatural one. A few months following the mine’s collapse, a woman had appeared on MacMillan’s step. Her look was tenuous, like a finger clinging to a ledge, and seemed to change with each passing moment, her skin shifting like the lines of a mirage. From her cloak seemed to issue ethereal, blackened limbs, like the crooked legs of a spider. She appeared youthful, though perhaps her comely shape was the result of the same magic enchantment that concealed her true appearance. She pulled back her hood in its entirety to reveal a face streaked with tears, the tracks down her cheeks so dark it was as if they were tattooed into the flesh, etched in mahogany ink.

She told MacMillan that her son was dead due to his neglect, and that _he_ was responsible for quashing the fruit of her joy, her love and labour. For his misdeed, he would be confined to his mansion indefinitely, undying, his looks veneered over with the guise of a feckless murderer, and there would be no mask thick enough to hide what he was.

There was only one key to his escape: he would remain imprisoned until he conceived a child, raised it, nurtured it, and into it poured his joys, dreams and hopes. Only once he was incensed with love for the child would the mother complete her vengeance: it was at this time, when MacMillan’s heart was so dedicated to his beloved child that the witch would return to take it from him. As her future was stolen, so would be his.

MacMillan was loath to believe in the curse of an ill-mannered heathen, but quickly the extent of the hex upon him became manifest. He could not leave the grounds of his mansion by any means. When he approached the eastern gates that lead into the woods, he would find himself suddenly returning the way he came. The end of his drive, the wrought-iron gates well in view despite the fog that persisted beyond, would recede from his reach as quickly as he approached them. 

He raged against his captivity, his violence drawing great, unhealing gashes across his skin. The weapons he used against the walls of his bower turned against him, breaking off in his flesh. His skin became tougher in quality, and his face cut deeper with scars. He hated to see only his face and no one else’s in perpetuity, thus he wore a ragged mask so that he would no longer need to glimpse himself reflected in the mirror. He lost track of time; it may have been years since his imprisonment, or decades. He ate tastelessly and found that neither sleep nor drink refreshed him enough to satisfy.

He thought of the witch’s curse. Conceiving a child was beyond his singular capabilities, but perhaps that was why the witch entrapped him thus. Alone in this place, without any way to contact the outside, he would never be able to entice—nor steal—a vessel to accept his seed. And it was singularly unlikely that a willing container would walk up the drive and steal away in his empty stable, waiting to be discovered in the dainty morning dew, and bred. MacMillan brooded over his traps, catching rabbits and deer in the lower gardens for his meals, and digging bitter roots until his nails were stained walnut black.

Dwight Fairfield rushed away from the road, blood dripping down his leg in a thin trail, like a signature in the sand. His cloak was steeped in rain, its heavy cold like steel against shoulders and neck. He was lucky to escape the bandits only wet and slightly damaged. They’d caught him on the road, and threatened him with blades and other sharp things, promising kind treatment in exchange for compliance. Dwight jumped down from his horse and ran, dropping his heavy pack in hopes that his supplies would satisfy them. The bandits—four of them, dressed in crudely made masks and hoods—stooped to collect his treasure. His belongings made up a pittance, truly, a few odds and ends, cookery, jewellery, oddities—but rather than ceasing their assault, satisfied with having robbed him, the bandits sent after him their hounds.

Four dogs, bred for violence and inciting fear, raced through the forest after Dwight, bounding easily between trees and over roots. How they did not overtake Dwight immediately, he did not know, but he continued to run without looking behind at his pursuers. He tripped and cut his knee and palm but kept running as the dogs clamored after him, insisting on taking their treasure from his flesh.

Down a long-exposed road mired with puddles and weeds, Dwight raced, until his chest felt as if it would burst, when he came upon an iron gate. It unlocked with a latch and though Dwight hesitated to trespass, he heard a whoop of excitement from a dog nearly behind him and slipped through the gate, snapping it shut after he was through.

At the doors of the mansion Dwight knocked until his knuckles hurt and the skin tore from them. No one answered, although the glow of lamplight shone from inside a window, far off like a distant camping fire. He wailed and pleaded with the door, his body cold and soaking to the bone, until finally he saw it open and admit him. He hesitated on the step.

“Please,” Dwight tried, gesturing with his hands at the space behind him, “there were bandits. And dogs—”

A hand found the front of his shirt and then wrenched him inside, the strength of it nearly lifting him from his feet. Then, the door slammed behind him again, and the one who admitted him was now outside, Dwight in.

Dwight gathered his breath and stepped close to the door, swallowing a frantic breath as he listened. He heard a quartet of shots outside, one after another, interrupted in between each by a yelp of animal terror; and then was silence, save the cold, receding echo a gunshot makes in a wide-open space.

The door opened again and a man stepped inside, locking the door behind him with one hand, the other on a hunting rifle. The man could scarcely be called that, by Dwight’s reckoning: he was much taller than one, towering above Dwight by a head or so, and broader in the shoulders than a bull. His limbs bulged with muscle, though littered with scars and fixtures of metal, and he had what appeared to be a horrifically misshapen, grey face, though Dwight realized shortly that it was a mask, roughly hewn and asymmetrical.

“Th-thanks,” Dwight said quickly, and reached to shake the man’s hand, but instead of reaching back in kind, the man just looked curiously down at the outstretched limb. Then, he struck out and gripped Dwight by the front of his shirt, tugging him near.

“Evan,” the man grumbled out, “MacMillan.”

“Well,” Dwight stammered, lifting his hands in surrender, “I am Dwight Fairfield, a merchant from the neighboring duchy. I came to sell my humble wares, but I was attacked by bandits on the road and lost the sum.”

MacMillan sniffed at him, sizing him up, hand still tangled in Dwight’s shirt and cravate. He placed his gun against the foyer table, and then used the now-free hand to lift up the boy’s shirt at the front, along with the neat, fitted waistcoat, pulling the sopping garments up. The fabric peeled free like a second skin, so saturated with moisture it was. He placed his palm against the white, smooth skin. It was exceedingly soft; this was a boy either young or well cared-for enough to have little need for physical work. Four of MacMillan’s fingers and a grubby thumb covered the whole of his twitching abdomen.

The boy was either exceedingly patient or exceedingly foolish, as he just continued to stammer rather than struggle, as if this were some sort of greeting he was unaccustomed to, but unwilling to rebuff and risk offense. He was, however, male, and a little old for the task of breeding, MacMillan considered, unhappily.

“Gentle, unassuming, plain, sweet-smelling,” MacMillan assessed. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

The boy hesitated. “No,” then he added, sadly, “indeed.”

A twinge of a spoor entered his nostrils and MacMillan sniffed at the air. It was faint, but distinct—the smell of washed cotton, autumn stream, sun on grass—the smell of one able to conceive a child. He didn’t know what they were called, nowadays, males who could carry offspring, and in his day, they’d been called all manner of names, both derogatory and descriptive: flowers, kelpies, carriers. Whatever he would be called, there was no doubt, this boy was one. A thrill burst in MacMillan’s chest, incendiary, like phosphorous.

“You can conceive,” MacMillan murmured, and the boy tried to pull away, then, tugging at MacMillan’s hand, which was tangled in his clothes. The boy’s slim hand was big enough to grip just two of the fingers digging into his silk cravat.

“I assure you, I can’t,” Dwight whispered, blushing, “I’ve been to the physician’s many times, and each time I’ve been guaranteed of the contrary.”

“The physician is _wrong_,” MacMillan argued. He could tell with his sense of smell more keenly than any man of science could prescribe. Modern medicine made people blind, deaf and anosmic to their own natural conditions. This soft, unassuming little thing, struggling in his grip, was indeed fit to bear children.

“I assure you,” Dwight insisted, wriggling, though it was something like a mouse trying to free itself from a snake, “now, my leg was rather injured in the wood…”

MacMillan released his grip, instead grabbing Dwight’s arm and tugging the boy to him. Dwight was dragged forward with a heave, and winced as his leg throbbed in protest.

“Wash first, then I will dress your wounds,” MacMillan said, peering at the injured calf. He gestured for the boy to follow to the bathroom and made to bring him there.

Dwight cleaned his limbs and body, and the grime from beneath his nails. Life on the road had gifted him a fair amount of muck and dust, but in the bath, he could renew himself. Once clean, he toweled roughly dry, finding his spectacles and replacing them before his clothes. His trousers were torn and bloodied, but his shirt, waistcoat, cravat and belt were folded neatly on the sink. Before he had a chance to grab any, however, the door burst open, admitting the man of the house.

“Oh!” Dwight exclaimed, covering his nakedness with the towel. MacMillan, his face hidden beneath the mask, seemed unbothered by the impropriety, stepping forward and pushing Dwight until he fell back on the counter.

“I’m not decent,” Dwight complained, shyly, and MacMillan merely grumbled in reply.

“Decent enough,” he huffed, and then knelt and grabbed Dwight’s leg, lifting it with enough force that it pushed him backwards into the faucet. He dressed the wound by wrapping a clean cloth around Dwight’s calf, and then replaced his foot on the ground. He then grabbed Dwight at the waist and pulled him in. He embraced the boy, stroking the back of his hand down Dwight’s cheek, the other settling on his bare hip. Dwight stared up at him in a mix of ardent amazement and anxious concern.

“Open your legs,” MacMillan murmured, dipping a hand between Dwight’s thighs. The soft, white skin gave to his coarse touch, and the boy flinched.

“Wh-what?” Dwight whispered, and tried to push off of MacMillan’s chest. It was impossibly broad, tucked beneath his overalls—dirty with work and stiff with age, his skin nearly the same texture.

“Open your legs,” MacMillan repeated, “let me see what’s between.”

Dwight shook his head, and MacMillan grabbed his jaw, forcing Dwight’s attention back to him. He kept one arm locked around his middle, holding Dwight near enough to smell. The scent he breathed deep of was lusty and sweet, like milk. The lad was very nearly untouched—shunned, or merely ignored, maybe, for his plainness. He would have this boy, whether he conceded or not.

“Get off of me,” Dwight said softly, and then with more power, “get off!”

MacMillan released him, and Dwight shoved away, backing to the farther end of the bathroom. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but wherefrom _I_ hail, it’s awfully impolite to touch someone like that without his blessing,” Dwight insisted, placing his hand behind him and feeling along the wall for the door. He was miles from it, MacMillan noticed, with an inner laugh.

“Well, where I come from, it’s awfully rude to enter a man’s home unannounced, and accept his hospitality without intention to repay him!” MacMillan snapped, and leapt forward to grab Dwight by the wrist. Dwight slammed an elbow down behind his back, ripped the brass towel rack from the wall, and hit his attacker across the face with a _thwack_.

MacMillan stumbled, a warm squirt of blood emerging above his brow where the rod hit his mask. By the time he’d regained his footing, Dwight had fled, dented flail left behind, along with all of his garments.

MacMillan laughed. Laughed for the sport of it, the intrigue! “Run, little one! Let me chase you!” he called down the hall after the boy, and made to follow him thither.

Dwight’s unburdened state made it easier for him to run, but it mattered little: there was only one way to go. The corridor ran straight to the foyer and the front door, but the hunter’s strides were much longer than the hunted’s, and he caught up quickly.

A curios cabinet stood between him and his quarry, and Dwight hovered at it for a moment, threatening to throw it down. Just as MacMillan lunged to grab him, the boy tipped the cabinet over, it landing against and bashing MacMillan on the hip, making him grunt and stumble. The minor hindrance only made MacMillan laugh and seethe as he righted himself and stomped forward, shoulders leading his strides.

The front door was in view, and beyond it, the gates, where MacMillan could not follow. He kept his head lowered, his sight going red and tunnelling as he strode towards the door, and caught Dwight just as the boy was fumbling with the lock.

“Come to me,” MacMillan growled, grabbing Dwight by the shoulder and pulling him back, sweeping his leg at the same moment, forcing Dwight to fall onto his rear, and catch himself on his hands. A streak of blood on the dark green rug was vestige of the injury to his palm, and the sight of it spurred MacMillan on, like a shark taunted by crimson bait. Dwight swung for his head, knocking him in the temple with a scrawny elbow, and MacMillan grunted before laughing.

“Good, good, fight, just like that!” he cried, and Dwight yelped as MacMillan pulled his feet out by grabbing at his naked ankle. Naked, yes—he was as vulnerable as smoke. He kicked and wriggled but MacMillan was simply twice his size, and pushed him down into the rug easily. A smack to the chin made Dwight reel, and he spun and fell onto his belly, catching himself on his elbows.

MacMillan was keen to take his prey just there, on the carpet, his legs splayed awkwardly apart, his rear raised and presented, his back muscles sliding beneath his skin, heavenly pale. But it was better to make the boy profoundly known to his new duty, and in the appropriate setting. He lifted Dwight up and hoisted him over his shoulder, conveying him away, back down the hall whence they ran.

Dwight struggled and fought with all his might, groaning with the effort and sobbing when it made no difference. He was tiny in comparison to his captor, who stood at a height to rival a horse, and carried the girth of one as well. MacMillan marched him down the hall, past the bathroom, to a bedroom deep in the mansion, tugged open the door, and tossed him down on the bed inside.

The bed was a stately four-poster, the room wide, and Dwight looked hurriedly around for egress before MacMillan was on him, pinning his wrists above his head. Dwight’s struggling renewed, and he twisted and kicked, attempting to turn his hips sideways, perhaps to shield his modesty, futile as the labour was. His face was flecked with sweat and tears of effort, and MacMillan’s excitement only grew at the sight of his red-faced agony.

MacMillan scooped an arm around both of Dwight’s knees and held them pressed into the mattress, turning his hips to the side and exposing his bottom and quivering hole.

“No, don’t!” Dwight cried, reaching for MacMillan’s arms. His hands found stony muscle and steel, his grip having no effect even as his nails turned into the scarred, knotted flesh. “Please. Don’t.”

Quick to beg. MacMillan was pleased to hear it. He shuffled off his overalls, still pinning Dwight’s legs with one arm. He pulled them down just far enough to expose his cock, the sight of the boy’s struggling exciting him long since to stiffness. Taking himself in one hand he gave a few testing strokes. It had been a long time since he’d had anything but his own hand to comfort him, as his maids ran quickly from his rough attention, and the servant boys escaped shortly after the curse took hold, knowing their cruel master to be unable to follow them (this before MacMillan had had the chance to fill the grounds with traps about the perimeter). The circle of his fist sheathing his cock did little to quench his desire for pulsing, hot, living flesh.

“No, no,” Dwight pleaded further, but MacMillan would accord him no recourse. He pushed inside without another thought.

Dwight screamed, body going long and tight as he was violated, his back bowing and fingers clenching in MacMillan’s flesh. Plunging inside without any oil didn’t bring about exactly the sumptuous slide MacMillan craved, but he would wait no longer to push into yielding meat. The boy went stiff, panting, hands trembling as he reached for the bedcovers, pulling, as if trying to drag himself away, to safety. MacMillan drew him back by the thighs, dragging him down the bed.

Dwight’s tears were flowing silently, and he clung at the sheets, anywhere he could reach. MacMillan flipped him onto his back and pulled his legs wide open, stuffing all of himself inside that could fit (without slick to aid the passage) and began to thrust. The sensation was unimaginable, touching the solid, fecund flesh of another, after years of solitude, of running to the gates only to have them shut closed _behind_ him, of marching around the foggy grounds, alone, ceaselessly.

Dwight cried with each brutal thrust, eventually going limp from the waist down, willing his muscles to relax rather than fight the intrusion and multiply his agony. His throat, white and mottled with red, dipped when he swallowed, as he was fighting back a sob. MacMillan fucked him without pause, rocking into him, piston-like, his thick waist parting Dwight’s legs around it, holding each in one work-roughed and blackened hand.

With a groan, MacMillan reached completion, and Dwight’s eyes widened as he recognised that the beast was spilling inside him. Though his hips and innards were numb with freezing pain, he felt MacMillan stutter to a halt while pressed up against the backs of his thighs, and knew that seed was flooding into him.

MacMillan purred as he pulled out, groan issuing from low in his chest as he felt his wet cock slide free. He inspected the boy’s hole and saw no blood, only the generous, long pent-up abundance of his spend dribbling out of the battered ring. He pushed his thumb inside, watching how Dwight flinched, breath hitching in his chest.

“You will bear me a child,” MacMillan insisted, dropping Dwight’s knees. The boy pulled them up to his chest, lying on his side on the wide bed. His thumb came to his lips and he nibbled nervously on the hangnail. “Rest, now. I need you strong.”

Dwight stayed in the bedroom in which he was taken that night, his freedom restricted only to that room and the adjoining bathroom, as MacMillan locked him therein. He cried silently into the pillow until he fell into a fitful sleep, waking every hour or so in pain and dripping with sweat. His hole ached, and between his hips still felt as though something was intruding there.

He was quite alone. He heard no noises except those made by MacMillan as the man went about the house and yard doing chores, preparing food for the stores, replacing wood in the furnace. The grounds outside were oddly quiet as well, save for crows that occasionally cawed in an accusatory tone, and the patter of periodic rainfall. Dwight sighed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

In the morning, MacMillan burst into the room and dragged him out by the wrist, bringing him once again to the bath. He ran the water, forcing Dwight into the tub before it grew warm and then hot, making him yelp and pull away until it became temperate enough not to scald. He sat in the milky water as MacMillan dipped his arms beneath the suds, sinking in up to the elbows to rub the boy clean. A soft rag did little to soothe his rough treatment, and Dwight flinched when a finger pressed inside of his still-tender hole, tugging it open to admit warm water.

Dwight covered his face with both hands in shame. MacMillan worked the old spend out of his clenching hole, letting it mix into the water in a trail through the ripples. He took Dwight’s hand away from his face, bringing it to his own instead, making him feel over the ridges of the rough-hewn mask.

“Don’t be ashamed,” MacMillan murmured, “your role is determined. There’s no predator without prey. You belong right here.”

Dwight shook his head. A finger, blunt and wide, pressed deeply into him, until he could feel it against a particularly sensitive spot inside him that he’d only explored timidly with partners of his own choice, and long ago, when he was very young and adventurous. He felt a flush rising to his breast and cheeks, from the steam of the bath _and_ the licentious touch.

The beast lifted him out of the bath and put him on the mat, knees parted, bottom raised and head down, buried in his hands. Dwight hid his eyes as he was pushed into again, only the warmth of the water making his skin more flexible, and the thought to breathe out as he was penetrated to save him from further pain. MacMillan grunted and huffed above him, mounting him efficiently and coming shortly, gravity forcing hot spend deep into Dwight’s bowels.

Dwight felt sick. MacMillan lifted him back into the bath to clean him again, only in a cursory fashion, sliding the washcloth here and there, whispering in his ear, kind things, nasty things, and horrible things.

Days proceeded in an unchanging fashion. Dwight was allowed to roam the mansion freely, and wear the clothes he came in, or go without (such was preferred by the master of the house, as it made it easier to get inside him quickly whenever the whim came) and even wander the grounds, though with MacMillan’s careful eye on him when he ventured out. Dwight didn’t expect he’d be able to run away, and the rifle by the front door made him wary to try it. Besides, he’d seen through the window MacMillan placing bear traps around the edges of the yard, and knew the grounds to be so littered with them, it was a wonder that the trapper didn’t step in them himself when he traipsed over the grasses.

At whatever time of the day he chose, MacMillan would take him. Push him onto his hands and knees on the staircase, lay him out flat on the nearest bed, force him over the counter in the kitchen and rut into him like a beast inseminating his mate. Dwight went without struggle, most of the time—he didn’t want to risk broken limbs, challenging the massive owner of the house. He discovered that MacMillan had no vocation, it seemed, no job to attend, and certainly no visitors: he was able to spend his days as he pleased, and seemed to punctuate raping his captive senseless only with the occasional chore or meal.

Dwight lay on top of the duvet, the layers crunching under his hands as he pulled and twisted. MacMillan was bent over between his legs, his mask askew as he sucked the boy’s nipples and navel, Dwight’s shirt shucked open and pushed up over his breast. The buttons strained as MacMillan forced the garment up beneath his armpits, sucking wet, lewd marks into the mottled flesh.

MacMillan reached down between his legs, rubbing himself in a slow circle through the leather of his overalls, groaning while he sucked hard at Dwight’s chest, drawing a welt from the pale membrane. He used a second hand to rub Dwight’s perineum with two thick fingers. A finger dipped inside—mercilessly dry, and Dwight cried.

“Let me use my mouth,” Dwight pleaded, putting both hands on MacMillan’s wrist. The man withdrew from sucking at his breasts and looked down at him. His mask, askew, revealed his mouth flattened into an unimpressed frown, his eyes hidden beneath the haunted shield.

“No point,” MacMillan answered, then pausing a moment to ponder, said, “you can use your mouth to get me ready. But I’m finishing in your cunt.”

Dwight swallowed, fighting back tears. He nodded, and got up to rest on his elbows. MacMillan climbed up above him, resting his weight mostly on his knees, but some on Dwight’s belly as well. The massive heft of him wasn’t unfamiliar, but it made Dwight shudder to realize just how restrained he was. He was like an ermine in a cage, waiting to be skinned.

MacMillan slid off his overalls, and took his cock in his hand, the bulge of the head appearing above his curled fingers. He then dropped his shaft onto Dwight’s chest where it fell on his breastbone like a weight, the heft of it thudding against Dwight’s thumping heart. Dwight swooned. He felt nearly faint, imagining that monster inside him, horrified to know that it _fit_. He leaned forward, reaching for the shaft with one hand and guiding it into his mouth, MacMillan closing the distance by pushing his hips forward.

Dwight sucked like his life depended on it, forcing down as much of the bulging shape as he could, swallowing as the rubbery head impacted the back of his throat. He felt the shaft engorge on his tongue, growing bigger, thicker. Barely half of it could fit in his mouth; the other half his fingers enwrapped, rubbing until MacMillan was pumping staccato into him, rocking back and forth on his chest in short little thumps.

Dwight felt the cock dip into his throat and hold there, and for a moment he struggled to breathe, drawing air through his nose, hoping desperately that if he had MacMillan finish in his mouth, he wouldn’t come inside his belly again. But MacMillan pulled away, leaving Dwight gasping as the shaft slid from his grip, and MacMillan backed down the bed until he was between Dwight’s thighs again.

Dwight squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself as MacMillan lifted his knees, wrenching them apart and thrusting blindly inside. It took a few clumsy jabs to get the angle right, and then he was thrusting like a machine, and Dwight bit down on his wrist as he accepted each jolt. His whole body was shaking when MacMillan came, shooting seed deep into his guts. Dwight simply couldn’t watch MacMillan pull out, the long, painful slide of him seeming to take an eternity as the beast slipped free, holding his thumb over Dwight’s hole to stem the leak.

When they lay there, Dwight panting and trembling, MacMillan behind him, cradling his waist, rubbing circles on his soft belly, Dwight asked_ why_. Why did MacMillan insist on coming in him over and over again, allowing him no moment to be without semen inside him? The hunter answered, and told his sad story.

Dwight stared ahead. His head throbbed, trying to take in the information. Then, he started to cry. The reality of his captivity—the eternity of it, the sense of defeat—slowly crashed over him, and he cried silently, voice breaking when he tried to speak.

“Why me?” Dwight sobbed, “I told you, I can’t conceive. I was…born broken. I’m an omega, yes, but I’m… unproductive. I can’t do it.”

MacMillan frowned. Behind Dwight’s head, away from anyone’s view, his face was bare, his mask off, temporarily discarded on the bedcovers. His jaw set.

“And I told you,” he hissed into Dwight’s ear, “you’re wrong. I can smell it on you. Your womb is waiting. You will accept my seed every day and every night. No moment will you be empty of my seed. And when within your belly my fruit grows, I will be free. _You_ will make me free.”

Dwight was shackled to the four-poster, one wrist hooked to each post with a thick chain. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, but the arms of the clock on the wall passed hours as he struggled between sleep and wakefulness, his eyelids heavy as if weighted.

MacMillan climbed above him, straddling his waist. His body smelled of the outdoors, and though freshly cleaned by the rain, nothing could remove the grime and blood from his fingers, elbows, ankles—they were constantly dyed ominous black.

“Water,” Dwight breathed, and MacMillan brought a glass to his lips. He tipped the cool, slightly acrid water into Dwight’s mouth, allowing him the entire glass, and as much as he wanted further. It was no good allowing his captive to expire, not with the work he required of him. Next, he fed Dwight meat, and the salt, fat and fibre tantalized, making the boy’s mouth water. MacMillan wiped Dwight’s chin with rough fingers.

The dishes were replaced on the side table, and MacMillan undid the clasps of his overalls, snapping them loose from where they hung, around the violent implements in his flesh. He slid the garment entirely off, revealing his nakedness, the massive, seven feet and then some height of him, the 18-stone of marble-hard, scarred flesh. Dwight shook his head, heartbeat quickening.

“Please,” Dwight begged, breathing thinning anxiously, his heart speeding in his chest, “no more. I can’t…do it again.”

MacMillan huffed in amusement, kneeling between Dwight’s legs. Dwight kicked at him, weakly, made helpless by his restraints, and the tool lodged inside him. It was a hard, rudimentary plug, put inside to lock in the sperm from previous breedings. MacMillan pulled it slowly out, placing it carefully on the sheets, watching as a trickle of spend leaked from his captive’s body. He pushed his thumb inside, coaxing a bit of the stuff back in.

“Please, Evan. _Evan_,” Dwight implored, squirming, his feet slipping on the sheets. “I can’t…anymore. I’ll die. I’ll _die_.”

Using his intimate name seemed only to please the monster, and MacMillan simply huffed in amusement. “You won’t die from this.”

He pushed inside. This time, fresh oil—brought by Dwight’s insistence, as he could no longer stand being entered dry—slicked the way, and allowed MacMillan to glide in until he was hilted in one long, steady push. Dwight arched, voice cracking as he sobbed, biting down on his lip.

“And besides…” MacMillan murmured, holding Dwight’s thighs open with his hands, “what makes you think death will free you from this? That I won’t fuck your still-warm body, plant my seed inside until I’m satisfied, when you do expire?”

His voice was deadly, and Dwight needed no more evidence to know that his captive was a murderer. The blood on the trapper’s hands was not only that of animals caught in his traps: deer, coyotes, dogs, and rabbits, shucked of their hides, their warm ichor spilling over his skin. How many _people_ had he caught in those traps? How many had wandered too near to the edges of the garden, or emerged, clueless, from the wood, and sought refuge in the manor’s looming shadow? How many, like Dwight, had been captured? It could not be that he was the first?

MacMillan slowed his thrusts to a gentle rock, reaching for Dwight’s chest, pinching a hardened nipple. Dwight gasped, sucking in his bottom lip, forcing his gaze away. A second hand found his navel, and massaged the soft swell below the hollow with his thumb. His womb. Or, where it would be—Dwight was built the same as any other omega, but he could bear no fruit. There was no convincing his captor, however, who spilled in him again and again with that purpose in mind.

MacMillan’s big palm glided down his side, callouses and scars prickling the white, untouched skin, until it landed on his groin, and cupped his soft penis. Dwight squirmed, a cry drowning in his throat as MacMillan fondled him, easing back on his thrusts to bring Dwight to hardness, sliding slowly up and down the shaft with his rough fingers. Three digits were enough to hold the entire shaft, not because the boy was overly small, but because MacMillan was an overlarge, deformed beast, pushed past the limits of growth by his rage, his cursed longevity. Dwight sobbed as he grew hard, a spike of distorted pleasure piercing his belly.

The pleasure was worse than the pain, Dwight thought, vision blurring at the edges, like a lantern behind textured glass. He breathed slowly, moaning, begging. Pain was unremarkable; he would forget it the moment it ended, but pleasure—the slow drag of MacMillan’s big hands across his skin, the neat, hard thrust of his cock, the warm touch of his leather-hard skin—was implanted, indelible in his memory. He wondered if he would ever reach completion without the beast beside him,_ inside_ him. With the pleasure came guilt, horror, a loss of himself.

Dwight’s breathing drew coarse as his pleasure rose, lifting, buzzing in his chest. MacMillan fondled him while he fucked him, driving deeper now, the girth of him traumatizing, making tears leak from Dwight’s brown eyes. He was nearly too exhausted to orgasm, but came just the same, shaking, thighs trembling with electric shocks. The trapper fucked him through it, staying insistently deep, driving in in an increasingly arrhythmic pattern, pounding until the mattress leapt with the force of it, coming deep—_too deep_, Dwight felt like he was choking, strangled—spilling a fresh load of seed inside.

Day and night blended into one. Dwight knew that the master of the house had no other trade, no responsibilities, and no leisurely diversions beyond the violation of him. MacMillan could spend the day doing whatever he pleased, and between tours around the grounds to check his traps for game, cooking and smoking meat over the fire, and sharpening his implements and cleaning his guns for further hunting, he forced himself on Dwight. With an unhurried sort of glee, he attempted to inseminate his prisoner, leaving him filled with cum after every session. Dwight found that nowhere the great manor was safe: the trapper would fuck him in any room of the house—in the parlor leaned over the desk, straddling an armchair, in any bed, in the bath, on the chesterfield. Dwight scarcely managed to dress, and only when his need for normalcy and modesty was too great to deny, and he desired a moment to look himself, dressed in his loose shirt, plain waistcoat with neat silk lining, and cravat—because he would be stripped of his clothes shortly at any rate.

MacMillan was reclined across the fainting couch in the parlor, the diminutive furniture barely holding his massive frame. He planted one foot on the ground and draped the other over the back of the bench, spreading his legs wide and beckoning Dwight to straddle him. Rather, he dragged Dwight atop him, making the boy sit splayed across his thighs.

“Come on,” MacMillan huffed, taking his cock in one hand and Dwight’s hip in the other. He smacked his stiff cock against Dwight’s belly. “You should know where it goes, by now.”

“Evan,” Dwight begged, shaking his head. Being on top only accorded him the tiniest bit of control, and only until the trapper was ready to take it from him. MacMillan only stared at him through his mask.

Dwight lifted up on his knees, took MacMillan’s cock in one hand and found his hole with the other, feeding MacMillan inside. It shouldn’t’ve been so overwhelming, after so many times, but it was, and Dwight gasped, throwing back his head when the villain’s cock spread his anus wide, stretching his muscles around it like the aperture of a lens. It hurt, but mostly it was the pressure, the unmistakeable _width_ of it, that made Dwight feel tightness in his chest, a hitch in his breath.

“The _rest_, Dwight,” MacMillan goaded, voice low, and Dwight shook his head.

“Wait, please,” Dwight choked out. It was only halfway inside, but his heart was pounding with force, while his body accustomed to the stretch.

MacMillan was in no mood to wait. He took Dwight’s waist in his hands and pulled him down. Dwight yelped, thighs clenching. He resisted for only a moment, leg muscles like steel, until they gave, withering, and he sunk down, inch by unbearable inch, until he was seated. He felt the sweaty, potent heat of MacMillan’s groin, the wiry hair against his gluteus, and knew there was no further to go. He went limp, head dropping back, jaw slackening.

MacMillan began to move, lifting his hips in short bursts that served only to keep him deep inside Dwight, gravity and the weight of the boy keeping him seated on his cock. Dwight gasped, and it was a choked, wet thing, out of his slack-open lips, as he reached blindly for purchase.

“E-Evan…”

Slim, white hands found his heaving pectorals, and the trapper smirked beneath his mask. “I love it when you say my name, because you hate so much to say it. I know that you’re. Completely. Desperate,”—he punctuated each word with a sharp jab of his hips—“when you say it like that.”

Dwight moaned, body going limp, vision failing with each penetrating jab. He thought about how an ancient count, a violent despot in his time, punished his enemies with impalement, and thought himself in the captivity of such a monster. He started to feel faint. It was too much for his body to handle, and he wondered if losing consciousness would save him the suffering.

“Don’t you faint, now,” MacMillan insisted, shaking Dwight awake by the shoulders. He gripped Dwight’s tired rod, coaxing it to life against his stomach. Despite his protests and “no, please, I’m too tired, it’s too much, Evan, _ah,_ _Evan please_,” he was quickly hard, and pulling at his hair to resist spilling on MacMillan’s steel-hard stomach.

“Come for me,” MacMillan grunted, thrusting up in a sloppy, quick pattern that made Dwight’s body shake, and punched little moans and sweet-sounding keens from his lips. “You can’t come without me in you. You’re tied to me, as much as I am to you. Come, now, sweet thing.”

Dwight sobbed, squeezing his messy locks between his fingers and arching up, his nipples saluting the ceiling, his back bowing like the curve of a scimitar. MacMillan groaned when the muscles surrounding his cock tightened, twitching and pulling at his hardness as if trying to drink him in. After a few more reckless pumps he was coming as well, spilling so deep inside Dwight he expected he wouldn’t see his spend again until the next day.

Dwight collapsed onto MacMillan’s chest, and the man stroked his back, his hair, dipping his fingers into the hollow of his spine.

Looking down at his swollen belly was terrifying, but Dwight couldn’t look away. Over the past nine months, his stomach had swelled and hardened, the skin going taut as leather stretched over a mold; still pale, it was bordered by blue veins that appeared green in the sickly candlelight. He swore he saw a twitch of foot, an imprint of an eager hand strike out against the dome of his belly. His pains were common but inconsistent, and nature assured him he had a few days or even weeks left to go before he delivered.

“It’s so big,” Dwight whispered, in horrified awe, running a hand over his naked abdomen. MacMillan’s hand—much bigger, nearly threefold the size of his, and stained awful black—joined his shortly. The bed they shared creaked as MacMillan leaned on his elbow and stroked Dwight’s womb, the fruit of their combined seeds jostling excitedly at the touch.

“And you will push it out for me,” MacMillan ordered. Then, suddenly, his voice was vicious. “And if you can’t, I’ll rip it out of you. I’ll tear open your legs and pull it out of your ruined cunt.”

Dwight’s heart raced. “Evan…”

“You know what a mountain lion does, when he spots a female with a cub?” MacMillan growled. “He _kills_ the cub, so that the lioness goes into heat shortly again, and is ready to bear his brood. Maybe I’ll do that to you. Get you ready to get pregnant again, as quickly as possible.”

“Please,” Dwight whimpered, “don’t even say that. I don’t…”

As Dwight felt a kick, as clear as fire, he awoke, clenching his stomach, which was rightly flat and soft. The dream had felt so vivid, he could still see the outline of MacMillan’s horrible progeny in his inflated belly, and could still feel the weight of it. But it was impossibility, the same as going back in time and changing his circumstance, or preventing himself coming to this miserable manor in the first place. He was as sterile as a mule, or so the physician had said, scathingly. Dwight remembered the mix of relief and grief it had brought him to learn.

MacMillan was behind him, curling a possessive arm about his waist while they dozed, spent. The night sky, tinged just with the blue of frightfully early morning—two or three bells, perhaps—glowed silently outside the quaintly framed windows of their bedroom. It was the one with the four-poster, one of a trio of bedrooms, by Dwight’s count, that they most often shared. It was where they first consummated their twisted marriage, and was permanently stained with their shared fluids, despite numerous replacements of the fine sheets.

Dwight wriggled, trying to find a more comfortable position, when he felt something hard poke at his back, and realized that MacMillan was hard behind him. Against his backside, the long, stiff thing was like rebar, or the cleaver MacMillan so often carried to dispatch game. Dwight shivered and tried not to move—if he was lucky, MacMillan would not awake, and sate himself in his dreams. But luck was not on Dwight’s side.

MacMillan stirred, and then groaned as he awoke. He took off his mask only when Dwight could not see him, and Dwight now felt the press of his bare face—cleanly shaved, only with a slightly sandy feel to his chin—against the back of his neck. MacMillan kissed him there, where his hair made subtle curls in his sweat, and made him shiver.

“Let me sleep, please,” Dwight whispered, “in the morning, I’ll suck you, I’ll ride your cock, _anything_—just let me sleep.”

“You won’t sleep until you’re with child,” MacMillan replied, and gripped Dwight’s cheek, pulling it aside, exposing his tight, twitching hole. He moved his hips until his cockhead found the small entrance, and pushed inside with one quick, jerking thrust.

Dwight keened, reaching back to find MacMillan’s hip and try to push him off, but it was much like pushing a block of stone.

MacMillan stuffed himself inside, returning a load of old, long-expired sperm to Dwight’s body. His hole was raw, stripped of any grip or defense, he suspected, as he could barely feel the numb skin around his sphincter, but deeper inside was still pulsing with sensation. He felt MacMillan butt against his prostate and groaned with it, hands gripping the sheets as he lay on his side.

It was too much, to go on like this, and Dwight dreamed of a time when MacMillan would eventually tire of him, and throw him out. He was, after all, incapable of breaking MacMillan’s curse, freeing him from his wretched mansion.

“Wh-Why are you doing this?” Dwight begged, groaning as a jab against his secret spot made him see stars, “I can’t conceive…”

MacMillan was close to his ear, and his voice was lethal as he whispered, “I know.”

Dwight yelped, grabbing his stomach as the secret spot was pushed again, making his vision throb and go dark. His spectacles were on the nightstand, and without clear sight, the sensations of his body were only clearer, more intense.

“I know you can’t get pregnant,” MacMillan said, sighing softly, “my seed would’ve taken by now. _But I don’t care anymore_.”

Dwight’s breathing took on a panicked edge as MacMillan pounded him ruthlessly, snapping up his hips so hard it made his murderous voice shake.

“I like keeping you as my toy, to fuck whenever I please. I wouldn’t trade you for the most fruitful maiden, the softest, untouched daughter, the most docile serving boy, the most dutiful wife or adoring husband,” MacMillan whispered. “_You are all of those to me_. You are my treasure. You are my prize.”

Dwight felt his eyes roll back in his head, and fell faint, waking seconds later to feel MacMillan so deep inside he was scraping the throbbing swell of his flat stomach from the inside, or so it seemed, in Dwight’s half-conscious delirium. He was on his back, too, and saw MacMillan’s mask above him, a terrifying blur through tear-streaked, blurry-eyed vision. Saliva spilled from Dwight’s slack-open mouth, his lips swollen, cheeks burning. Sweat dripped down his chest, along the lines of his collarbones.

“Evah…ah…” his words came out in a messy amalgam, melted together, “I’m…I…_aahn, ah, ah_…ah Evan…_Evan_…”

“What? What is it?” MacMillan goaded, he thrusted in with a dangerous edge to his voice. He wrapped his hands around Dwight’s neck, applying no pressure to his throat, simply turning his focus upwards, with fingers nudging the back of his skull. “What is it, my prize?”

“I ca…ca…aa…p…please,” Dwight groaned, pleasure hitting him like a train, a jolt of electricity coming from that spot MacMillan knew so well how to find, now. He avoided touching it sometimes, to prolong Dwight’s agony or increase his own pleasure, Dwight didn’t know, but damn him if he wasn’t finding it _now_ with the stunning accuracy of a doting husband in a seasoned coupling. Dwight supposed they were long-since married, by the common law or any traditional rule, and he felt tears come to his cheeks at the thought. Adjoined to a killer. A fresh stab of molten pleasure travelled up his spine and he flinched, hands trembling awfully at his ears where his wrists lay limp.

“K…kill…me,” Dwight breathed, and with sudden clarity wished it, and saw it, clear as day, his chest impaled on MacMillan’s long cleaver, skewered and hung from the ceiling like a carcass of game, blood draining from his lifeless body. He was as good as impaled here, with MacMillan’s cock ever inside him, compelling him into this helpless pose, his thighs pinioned open. “Kill me. Kill me, please…”

MacMillan chuckled coarsely, his breath with a coarse edge, a husk to it, like a shucked coconut, a torn hide. He grinned, almost as broadly as did his rough-hewn mask, a twisted, horrible expression of mirth, and he whispered his villainous reply. “One day, my prize. But not today.”

He thrusted until Dwight was crying out with each movement, little _ah, ah, ah, ah_’s punching out of his chest, his legs shaking terribly, as pleasure filled up his senses, overtaking the pain. His voice rose to a nearly angry, massacred pitch, a scream torn from him as he came, spurting on his own chest. MacMillan enjoyed the sight immensely, and increased his speed to match his urgency to come, driving deep, until Dwight fell silent, insensate, his lips slack. A few more hasty thrusts and MacMillan groaned with excitement, forcing another load of potent spend into Dwight’s body.

The shine of candlelight disappeared from Dwight’s brown eyes as he fell unconscious.

Morning broke and Dwight stumbled out of bed in a hurry, extricating himself from MacMillan’s iron grasp, rushing to the adjoining toilet. He retched but nothing came up, and while he hovered there on his knees he brought a hand to his belly.

It was a faint thing, and invisible indeed, the thing that he sensed just then. But he knew it as much as he knew his own name. Dwight Fairfield. The thing that wouldn’t be taken from him, even as MacMillan stripped the rest of his liberties away, and his modesty, every godforsaken day. He knew it quite well indeed.

The seed had taken hold.

On occasions, Dwight looked at his wrists, limp by his ears where they rested on the pillow, MacMillan thrusting between his thighs like a possessed beast, and imagined them slit and spilling blood on the sheets. The ichor would stain the whole bed, from the cotton pillowcase, to the olden, deftly woven quilt in shades of umber and claret, to the white linen sheets. It would be a charming sight, like someone deciding to change the colour scheme of the house and managing only to splatter paint on the furniture and entirely miss the walls. The thought made him laugh, sometimes, tastelessly, as MacMillan finished inside him, the beast’s senses clogged with his own pursuit of orgasm, unknown to Dwight’s wistful schemes.

Dwight took one of MacMillan’s hunting knives—the tiniest, most often overlooked and least likely to be missed—from his shed where he kept all of his tools. He sequestered it under the mattress, moving it about from place to place just in case his hateful husband noticed it. Sometimes, he pressed himself deliberately into the place where he’d hid the implement, feeling it like a comforting embrace.

He hadn’t shared his condition of fecundity with MacMillan yet, and hoped that by the time his belly began to swell, he could blame it on a routine spent most often in repose, on his back or knees, with little opportunity for exercise. He wasn’t sure why he hid it—after all, it might spare him harsher treatment—but maybe he didn’t want to provide his captor with any satisfaction of knowing that his…tenacity had borne fruit, and literally.

He sat on MacMillan’s lap, the man’s knees loosely parted beneath him where he balanced, full weight of him holding MacMillan’s cock right inside him. Dwight supported himself with his hands on MacMillan’s shoulders, breathing stubbornly into his face. His heart, rather than stammering in his chest, was nearly calm, perhaps finally taught, after sessions upon sessions of overexertion, to measure his stamina.

The mask in front of him was hideous and crooked, the mouth sliced wide and the unnaturally round holes where the eyes saw out from horribly small. The teeth forced erratically into the wood around the mouth Dwight couldn’t decide if they belonged once to a fox, wolf, weasel, or else were bent and shaved into some unnatural shape. Worst of all, the teeth were pricked with blood, as if the ever-open maw had once bit into something or someone living. Dwight felt as if he could gag at the sight of it, but he planted his hands softly on either side, gently grasping the trapper’s head between his palms.

“Can I see you without it?” he asked, softly, but with a fearful edge he knew MacMillan had come to expect.

“Why?” MacMillan asked back, shifting his hips just so and making Dwight gasp. They were hardly moving, rocking in slow tandem, sharing warmth between their mismatched bodies—Dwight pale as bone and slight, and MacMillan with skin darkened by the outdoors and malice, and large enough as double the lad in his lap.

Dwight took a deep breath, letting it shakily release. “Won’t you let me see the face of my husband? The father of my child?”

This he whispered, and the effect was as immediate as it was anticipated: MacMillan seemed to swell up with pride, his chest filling and his cock even seeming to grow. Dwight shuddered as MacMillan nodded, once, sharply, and went to remove his mask.

While his palms and the nasty wood concealed MacMillan’s sight, Dwight reached carefully behind himself and extricated the knife whence he’d bundled it in folds of coverlet, hiding it against his wrist. With the other hand he stroked MacMillan’s breast, running his finger along the ledge of his collarbone, while the man twisted to place his mask on the table beside them.

Seeing his face bare, it was almost possible to have sympathy for the trapper. His skin was torn here and there like old upholstery and badly healed, his eyes fierce but grey, and his cheeks gaunt with sorrow, as though he’d never smiled once in his miserable life. He was imprisoned here, too, beyond his will, and the longer Dwight looked, stroking a finger gently down one miserable cheek, the more compassionate he became.

He didn’t look for very long.

Dwight plunged the knife into MacMillan’s throat, just beneath the knot of his jaw. It didn’t go in as deep as he’d expected, even with his full strength behind it, but it sunk far enough to send blood pouring out around the blade. MacMillan let out a low, wet groan, reaching for the handle, awkwardly considering removing it or leaving it be, but Dwight decided for him, ripping the blade out with a triumphant arc. Arterial spray erupted instantly from the hole, reaching even the distant wall before slowing to a steady gush, sopping down Evan’s neck, shoulder, and bare chest.

MacMillan reached for the cut, squeezing his hand over it, but it was no use to stem the flow. With his other hand he grabbed for Dwight’s shoulder, but his grip was weak, and Dwight carefully extricated himself from it, as well as from his waning erection. It slid lose with a _pop_ and Dwight breathed in relief, watching as MacMillan stared, eyes wide and nearly bulging, struggling to make sound, though nothing came from his lips.

Slowly, the killer’s strength diminished, and gradually, and then all at once, he collapsed backwards on the bed, eyes rolling back, hand still clamped uselessly over the torrent of crimson pouring out of his wound. It was as thick as oil, as paint, soaking the covers, pooling where it was too thick to absorb, spreading out in a delicious, spider-leg spread pattern. The trapper was still and silent as his body continued to bleed, systems pumping valiantly at speed to keep him preserved, but it was no longer any use.

Dwight leaned over to kiss his “husband” on the lip. The trapper was still and insensate, and, Dwight realized with a calm sort of madness, would soon be dead. He breathed the scent of him one last time—wood, walnut, ash, iron, and the sweet tang of blood—before climbing off of him and walking away.

He washed only briefly in the bath, taking some of the blood from his hands, and then dressed quickly in his slacks, vest and cravat. He wondered how long it would be before his buttons no longer did up over his bulging midsection. He took a bag and filled it with things—a knife, dried game, sour apples from the trees outside, a skin of water, and the mansion’s keys.

Dwight’s friend Jake lived in the woods, and Dwight expected he’d find him sooner than he’d find town. He’d know what to do next. He left through the front door of the mansion, closing it behind him and walking down the path.

He’d seen the path through the window many times, shrouded in mist, the shapes in the garden seeming to rearrange themselves sometimes, to assure trapper’s confinement—the path turned direction, bits of old machinery moved from one side of the yard to the other, and trees and grass grew in random assortment. He ventured down the road from the door and found it quite open to him, and the air clear, the curse of its master’s imprisonment lifting. At the edge of the wood he saw traps of all diameters, open and shut, rusted with age and one of them holding fast a rabbit by the hind leg. He stooped to free it, opening the jaws of the trap enough for the rabbit to slip free and limp away.

Beyond the iron gate, the woods opened, and Dwight took a breath of the damp, cool air. His freedom within grasp, he took one last look at the mansion, and thought he saw MacMillan there, struggling to find himself at the door, his mask unblinking, his fingers on the doorframe walnut-black.


End file.
